84 OCEAN BIRDS. 



by itself; they are always in flocks, sometimes of enormous magnitude. It is a pretty sight to 

 see them fluttering up and down like a cloud of silver butterflies, and glittering like the 

 silver tree when its leaves are shaken by the wind. On the voyage to Australia you should 

 first catch sight of them about 40° S. and 10° E., in the region of Tristran-da-Cunha. It 

 almost exactly resembles a small P. turtur, only has rather more white about the face, and is 

 generally of a lighter colour. Gould gives the following dimensions : — " Total length, nine 

 inches; bill, one inch and one-sixteenth; wing, six inches and three-quarters; tail, three 

 inches and three-eighths ; tarsi, one inch and one-eighth." In the Natural History Museum 

 it is called the Brown-banded Blue Petrel (Prion desolatus). 



Banks' Prion [Prion Banksii). — Gould describes the bird as very similar to P. turtur, but 

 of a longer and more elegant form. Mr. Salvin calls both this and the Broad-billed Prion 

 Prion vittatus. 



Broad-billed Prion (Prion vittatus). — Gould says this bird is rather larger than the last 

 species, and its bill still more dilated. He thus describes it : — " All the upper surface delicate 

 blue-grey ; the edge of the shoulder, the scapularies, outer primaries, and tips of the middle 

 tail-feathers, black; space surrounding the eyes and the ear-coverts black; lores, line over the 

 eye, and all the under surface, white, stained with blue on the flanks and under tail-coverts ; 

 bill light blue, deepening into black on the sides of the nostrils and at the tip, and with a 

 black line along the side of the under mandibles ; irides very dark brown ; feet beautiful light 

 blue." There is a good specimen of a male bird in the Natural History Museum which shows 

 the extraordinary breadth of the bill, while a skeleton alongside shows how small the bird is 

 when deprived of its feathers. 



Snowy Petrel (Procellaria nivea). — In the Natural History Museum there is a good 

 specimen of this Arctic bird, caught on the Antarctic Expedition, in 77° S. It is pure white, 

 with black bill, black eyes, and yellow legs and feet, about the size of a Cape Pigeon. After a 

 long series of southerly gales it might be met with round Cape Horn. Two females were 

 obtained in the Ice Barrier by H.M.S. 'Challenger' on the 14th of January, 1874. 



Concerning the Petrels called Puffinus, Gould, in his 'Birds of Austraha,' says: — "The 

 flight of the species of Puffimis differs considerably from that of the Procellaria in being 

 straighter, and performed close above the surface of the water ; it is, moreover, so 

 exceedingly rapid that Mr. Davies states it cannot be fairly estimated at less than sixty 

 miles an hour." 



